Role in IT decision-making process:Align Business & IT GoalsCreate IT StrategyDetermine IT NeedsManage Vendor RelationshipsEvaluate/Specify Brands or VendorsOther RoleAuthorize PurchasesNot Involved

Work Phone:

Company:

Company Size:

Industry:

Street Address

City:

Zip/postal code

State/Province:

Country:

Occasionally, we send subscribers special offers from select partners. Would you like to receive these special partner offers via e-mail?YesNo

Your registration with Eweek will include the following free email newsletter(s):News & Views

By submitting your wireless number, you agree that eWEEK, its related properties, and vendor partners providing content you view may contact you using contact center technology. Your consent is not required to view content or use site features.

By clicking on the "Register" button below, I agree that I have carefully read the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy and I agree to be legally bound by all such terms.

Google Maps Hires Expert From Microsoft's Bing Maps Division

The former Microsoft mapping expert, Blaise Agüera y Arcas, brings a wealth of experience from Bing to his new employer.

The Google Maps team just made a significant hire, bringing in Blaise Agüera y Arcas from Microsoft, where he had helped develop Microsoft's Bing Maps.

The move to Google by Agüera y Arcas was unveiled in a Dec. 15 blog post in The New York Times, which noted that he will work on machine learning at Google, based on several sources. "Mr. Agüera y Arcas was involved in a variety of development projects at Microsoft including some on augmented reality, wearable computing and natural user interfaces," the story reported. "One of the most recent efforts he oversaw at the company was a new version of Photosynth, a service for creating immersive, 3-D panoramas."

Agüera y Arcas also wrote about his job change in his personal blog in a Dec. 16 post, calling the move "the hardest decision of my life."

He wrote that the move to Google is "on one hand, of course this is tremendously exciting; Google is a com­pany of grand ambitions and brilliant people. On the other hand it has been hard – very hard – to detach emotionally from Microsoft. The company's leadership has been consistently good to me over these past eight years, and it has been a time filled with cre­ativ­ity and growth and good friends. It's painful to leave behind so many won­der­ful ongo­ing projects, and even more so to leave behind such a great team."

Under the arrangement, Google Maps will obtain spectacular map imagery from some 500 maps from the National Geographic Society. Under the newly launched Google Maps Engine public data program, organizations can now distribute their map content to consumers using Google's cloud infrastructure, according to Google.

And that's where National Geographic's contribution comes in, bringing digital images of many of the long-popular printed maps that are often tucked inside the latest issues of the magazine. To do that, National Geographic will also use Google Maps Engine to overlay its maps with interactive editorial content, so the maps can "tell stories" and raise awareness about environmental issues and historic events. The maps will be available for free access, but the group also plans to sell or license high-resolution and print versions to raise funds for the Society.

In October, Google released Google Maps Engine Pro to make it easier for businesses to use online maps to attract customers and new revenue. The new professional mapping tool lets businesses visualize their huge amounts of critical data on maps so they can take advantage of the new resources the data provides, according to Google. Google Maps Engine Pro was built as an application on top of the Google Maps Engine platform, which provides businesses with cloud-based technology to help them organize large datasets and create more complex maps.

In July, Google Maps unveiled a new maps layer for developers so that they can better integrate their data with images in Google Maps. The innovative DynamicMapsEngineLayer gives developers the abilities to perform client-side rendering of vector data, allowing developers to dynamically restyle the vector layer in response to user interactions like hover and click, according to the company. The new maps layer makes it easier for developers to visualize and interact with data hosted in Google Maps Engine.

In June, Google for the first time released its Google Maps Engine API to developers so they can build consumer and business applications that incorporate the features and flexibility of Google Maps. With the Maps API, developers can now use Google's cloud infrastructure to add their data on top of a Google Map and share that custom mash-up with consumers, employees or other users. The API provides direct access to Maps Engine for reading and editing spatial data hosted in the cloud, according to Google.

By submitting your information, you agree that eweek.com may send you eWEEK offers via email, phone and text message, as well as email offers about other products and services that eWEEK believes may be of interest to you. eWEEK will process your information in accordance with the Quinstreet Privacy Policy.

We ran into a problem

We already have your email address on file. Please use the "Forgot your password?" link to create a password, validate your email and login.